Narcissus
by Atlin Merrick
Summary: Sherlock's got laryngitis. John decides to soothe his poor wheezy sweetie. Of course he does. It's entirely natural for him to do so with a little sexing. Of course it is. Making love to his lover whispering sweet, sweet nothings to him…in his own voice.
1. Chapter 1

**Narcissus**

It started with a bang, he ended with a whimper.

They'd been going at it for ten days straight and frankly John was battered, bruised, balls-to-the-wall exhausted.

It'd been just one case, only one, but it'd been a corker: A string of wildly unrelated thefts and arson and, oddly, baked goods or kittens left behind at each crime scene. It had taken everything John, Sherlock, Greg—the entire Yard—had to give.

Of course Sherlock had been in his element. And you know him, he always talks it out, has to _hear_ himself think, generally needs to bask in his own genius.

Which is to say he hadn't shut up for a week and a half.

After they collared the duo late last night—a his-and-hers set of 20-somethings with far too much brain, booze, and boredom and too few boundaries—Sherlock had then talked non-stop through _both_ his and John's statements, over dinner at Angelo's, in the shower, and then in bed. Which goes far toward explaining how the imperious detective lost his second most important weapon.

…

It started late afternoon of the next day, when Sherlock tried to moan as he masturbated in bed. All that came out, however, was a hoarse little wheeze.

Which woke a dozing John right on up. Turning toward his wanking lover he pointedly said, "You've got laryngitis."

Sherlock arched his neck, tried to say "Busy!" but just sort of croaked.

John frowned. "You're all sweaty, look at you."

Sherlock lost his rhythm for a moment, tried to hiss, "Not now!"

John pressed his hand to Sherlock's forehead. "You've got a fever."

Sherlock attempted to bite John's arm on general principle, and groan, "Later!"

John sat up. "Mycroft just had pneumonia. You better not be getting pneumonia."

Sherlock, snaked his other hand down between his legs, closed his eyes. He could not, however, close his ears.

John took note of the fast pulse at Sherlock's neck. "Do you feel nauseous?"

Sherlock bit his lower lip kind of hard and rasped, "Nntnwwww."

John took note of his lover's trembling. "Damn it, you're shaking, too." Another press of a doctorly hand on Sherlock's brow.

Sherlock's hand moved faster over his cock, his mouth fell open and—_hell-the-fuck-lo!_

John didn't go down on Sherlock just then from anything remotely resembling lust. While 221B's dynamic duo often have some damn fantastic sex, yes, it may surprise you to know that many days they don't, and even when they do it's sometimes kind of sloppy or fast or distracted or, like now, meant to get everyone to the other side so that—

_"—*wheeze*croak*hiss*—"_

—so that the one who was the doctor could get the one who tended to over-do it to just stay still for one damned second.

The doctor got his wish. Sherlock's body went hard and motionless as he filled John's mouth. Then, a few seconds after his orgasm—seconds, just seconds, John is still amazed the rare times he does this—Sherlock sat up with a grin, pressed his hands together and said…

Nada.

Nothing.

Zip.

He tried, mind you. He opened that voluptuous mouth wider (as if that would help) and he made a valiant effort to speak, but it looked remarkably as if speaking was something Sherlock Holmes was currently incapable of doing.

Then he coughed. Nice and gurgly and disgusting.

"That's it, get dressed, I'm taking you to A&E."

Sherlock—never up for reacting when over-reacting will do—waved noodly arms in the air, shook his head, and scowled.

John stood up, bare bones naked, pillow marks still on his face. Didn't matter, he radiated _I __will __not __fucking __ask __twice _in big fat juicy waves.

Sherlock got out of bed, got dressed.

…

They were back three hours later, both unbearably smug.

John because Sherlock didn't have pneumonia.

Sherlock because Sherlock didn't have pneumonia.

He did, however, have a nice bout of the flu, which was why he was currently coughing and wheezing and flouncing round the sitting room acting aggrieved.

"You do know the flu is often a precursor to pneumonia, don't you?" John said, all doctorly as he turned up the flat's heat. "And you, you walking disaster zone, were probably _this_ close."

Sherlock plucked the skull off the mantle, walked dramatically over the coffee table, flopped onto the sofa. He made a moue at John.

"Though the laryngitis, well I'm surprised you haven't had it before," John complained as he turned the kettle on, "What with the way you go on and on and endlessly on sometimes."

Sherlock ran his thumbs over the skull's eye sockets and thought, _You wouldn't make me go to A&E._

_Ha! Think again boy genius._

"And don't think I'm leaving you alone to wallow in your misery," said John, pulling out tea cups.

_I would have made you go to A&E so fast your big head would swim._

Sherlock cast his moue upon the skull but she did not shut up. Apparently no one in this flat was going to damn well shut up.

"Because I'm not. Mycroft ended up in hospital for a reason, Sherlock. Because as geniuses go he's as stupid as you are."

_Are you listening to our little BAMF? Turn me around so I can hear him better._

Sherlock scowled and thought about not complying but he lives with two tyrants, _two,_ when the standard issue per household is usually not even one.

"You think your giant brains somehow have a cloaking device or something, protecting you from the ills of common folk."

_Well they don't, you big lug._

"Well they don't."

_Ha!_

"Shhhhhhhh. SHHHHHH!"

It wasn't much but it was the only sound Sherlock could make that didn't directly involve his larynx and so he put his all into it.

For all the good it did.

"Open your mouth and shut up."

Sherlock clamped his mouth closed and refused to make room on the sofa for John's bum. John's left buttock held on anyway.

"If you make me ask again there Will Be Consequences."

Sherlock opened his mouth. For one second.

John touched the skull, as if to take her away. Sherlock opened his mouth. John started sliding a thermometer in.

"Careful! I didn't get it all the way in for crying out loud."

Sherlock opened his mouth so wide he looked almost frightening.

"Stop being unnerving. Why are you acting like a six year old?"

Sherlock wrapped his arms around the skull, stretched out long on the sofa, and waited until the thermometer was in his mouth—of course—before trying to husk out an answer.

_"Tttt!"_

It was enough. The thermometer fell onto his chest.

John huffed in frustration. "One day I'm going to be taken to jail because I'm romancing an underaged idiot. Seriously. What are you, _two?_ And don't answer that. Just shut up and stop fidgeting and open your mouth again so I can shove this thing in there."

Sherlock scowled and was about to argue—without his main weapon—but the second his lips parted John plugged the thermometer back in then pressed hard at the underside of Sherlock's jaw.

"No words. No trying to form words. No nothing. Just stop fidgeting and stop pretending you can talk and just stop everything all of it at once before you make me mental. Mentaler. More mental."

Now John scowled. "And also just stop it because you're making me sick. Literally. I can feel your germs multiplying inside me because that's what always happens. So just make my life a little easier, would you? Just for once be a good boy and act your age so that when I begin to die I can do so with a certain degree of ease, can you do that? Will you do that?"

Sherlock blinked at John.

John blinked at the skull.

"She said _wishful __thinking."_

Sherlock's brows shot into his fringe and he was about to wave his arms and shout _you __hear __her __too?_ but John's hand was still clamped under his jaw so _that_ conversation would not be occurring for another ten weeks, five days, and roughly thirty minutes when they were on their honeymoon—the one neither knew was only ten weeks, five days in their future.

So instead of saying anything—which he couldn't do anyway—Sherlock frowned and blinked a big _I'm __sorry,_ because John wasn't kidding. For this is what happens every time Sherlock gets sick:

* Sherlock refuses to admit he's sick.

* So Sherlock doesn't get a little sick; instead he ignores his symptoms until they take him off at the knees and he gets Really, _Really_ Sick.

* He then requires a great deal of tending and pampering. Or rather, he _accepts_ a great deal of tending and pampering. If John wants to slather him in toast, affection, and a certain degree of sexual servicing why on earth shouldn't he let his lover do what makes him happy?

* While he is being pampered Sherlock creates inside his person a new and virulent strain of the germ currently taking him off at the knees.

* Sherlock gets well in about four days.

* On day five John gets taken off at the knees.

* Sherlock begins to slather John in burned toast, tepid tea, John's favorite junk food (even Sherlock can not get Maltesers and Ribena wrong), and a certain degree of sexual servicing providing John can breathe, if not, then Sherlock just plays the violin for him.

* Lather, rinse, repeat with every summer cold, winter flu, and sometimes, John swears, random headaches, sprains, and contusions because seriously at this point they are so joined at the hip that if Sherlock gets a toothache it seems John goes to the dentist.

_Anyway._ They both knew John was going down for the count before long and so Sherlock blinked his apology and John read the thermometer and the giving and taking were in perfect balance and all was right with the world.

And then John said:

"Now, I'm going to put the telly on so that you get bored into somnolence or so indignant you're entertaining, and then I'm going to take a shower in a vain attempt to wash off the germs from A&E."

John paused a few long moments. And then John said softly, "After that I'll come back—we'll call it about twenty minutes—and if you're a very good boy I promise to shut down that magnificent mind of yours with some of the best sex you'll ever have."

Sherlock huffed out a startled breath, heart suddenly thrumming hard and fast.

Oh, it wasn't the hyperbolic content of John's message that had the great detective suddenly pressing a hand between his legs.

It was the fact that John had delivered it emulating Sherlock's voice perfectly.

_ _This is a sequel to "Voice Over" so you probably have some sense of what's coming. Other than the boys. And I promise you, they _are_ coming. One of them will be talking a blue streak. One of them will not. Except…he sort of will. Next chapter up Monday._ _


	2. Chapter 2

Sherlock has an amazing imagination.

Give him maggots, a piece of string, and a beach umbrella and he can visualize the haunch of meat that had been tied to the umbrella to tempt the dog which ate the evidence which dribbled on the ground which led to the maggots which in their writhing beauty were a perfect smoking gun pointing to the nefarious deeds of the lady of the house who had gotten rid of her husband piece by nauseating piece using that umbrella and string and really, really perhaps we've made our point.

And the point is, Sherlock has an amazing imagination. Provide him a few clue bricks and from them he can build a case-closed mansion.

Yet here's the thing: Sometimes Sherlock doesn't want to _use_ that imagination. Because sometimes (always) he wants to be surprised. He wants to be wowed, taken off at the knees in amazement, craving it more than he has ever craved any drug. So far the only persons capable of surprising him are Mycroft (exactly twice), his mother (also twice), Mrs. Hudson (eight times), and John (times past counting).

Don't think John doesn't know this.

"Keep your eyes closed."

Sherlock's eyes flew open. Had it already been twenty minutes?

Freshly showered, John grinned down at him, lashes still in damp little spikes, hair moist. Dressed in a black, long-sleeved t-shirt and old jeans, feet bare, the good doctor kneeled beside the sofa, ran a slow hand along his supine sweetheart's neck, jaw, forehead. "Your fever's receded, but if you'd like to rest instead of—"

The laryngitis may have left him speechless, but with a mighty frown and a dramatic shake of his head, Sherlock managed to radiate _hell no_ in hot, spikey waves.

John grinned, then leaned in close and whispered at Sherlock's ear, "Then get into bed my love, and close your pretty, pretty eyes."

Sherlock often surprises John and has done times past counting. For every two instances where the imperious git obeys his lover, there is at least one where he rebels. Usually his mutinies are brief, but they are almost never when John expects them.

Like now.

Because, despite the fast pulse in his neck, the expanded pupils, the fact that he was getting erect _as John watched,_ despite all this Sherlock blinked a slow gaze at his lover, rose languidly, and looked around the sitting room, for all the world a man wondering where that interesting book had got to…

Then, as if it had always been his plan, he walked indolently toward their bedroom, white button-down shirt sliding silent from his shoulders and to the sitting room floor.

John is nearly certain Sherlock did not hear his appreciative hum. What John _is_ sure Sherlock heard were the next words he spoke.

…

"Close your eyes love. Then listen."

Long bones stretched out in the middle of their bed, bare but for dark dressing gown draped loosely over pale skin, Sherlock closed his eyes. The moment he did John's mouth was at his ear but for long seconds the good doctor said nothing, simply…breathed differently.

Sherlock sensed it, felt it, _smelled it._ Then John said in a deep voice, a dark voice, in _Sherlock's _voice, "I'm going to do so very many things to you."

The hair on the detective's arms stood up. For several long seconds his brain fired and blazed with basic declarative sentences—_oh that's sexy; is that sexy; why is that sexy—_and then it began to catalog—_timbre; idiom; cadence; all perfect—_and then it stopped because John's lips tickled soft along the plane of his jaw, and he rumbled, "I'm going to take your brain offline. I know how to do that. How to reach inside and _touch you _where it matters most." A soft bass laugh. "I'm the smartest man in the room when it comes to you. You know I am."

A regiment of goosebumps rose along Sherlock's spine and so help him he wanted to stop, take that reaction apart, study it. Why did the sound of his own voice, whispered soft against prickling skin make him—

"I know what you're doing now. _Right_ now."

John was suddenly on the other side of him, mouth barely pressed against Sherlock's temple.

"You're thinking. That's what Sherlocks do. We think even when we're shaking—"

_Oh fuck._

We. John had said we. Sherlock reflexively ran hands along his arms, to still the trembling. It didn't work.

"—sometimes I think we think even when we're coming. Just sometimes. Not always. No. Because John's good, isn't he? John…"

John said his own name with a sigh, fell silent…then his lips were against Sherlock's neck.

"…understands us, doesn't he? How to briefly mute the blaze of our brilliance, how to take us apart and then put us back together. John can do that, can't he?"

Sherlock could hear his heart beating in his own breath. He nodded _yes._ Then he did it again and a third time for good measure. _Yes, yes, yeeees._

"If John were here, what would you want him to do to us, Sherlock? How should he touch us?"

Instinct: It's an inherent inclination toward a particular behavior. We pull our hand from a fire, smile at another's smile. Or we instinctively open our legs and slide a hand between them in answer to a pointed, sexual question.

"Yes, he'd touch us there, wouldn't he? John loves our cock."

Sherlock whimpered. Yes, actually whimpered. His brain felt absolutely snarled with the traffic of his thoughts. He needed to understand why he was _this_ hard _this_ fast at the sound of his own voice, and he needed to process the delicious _deliciousness_ of John's words, and finally he needed to figure out how to breathe through his fluish congestion or else he'd be dead from suffocation before John even touched him.

Sherlock opened his mouth, sucked in a wheezy breath. There, one problem solved.

But before he could work on the congestion in his _head_ John was talking again, turning all the lights green at once.

"Do you know someone at the Yard once asked John if the carpet matched the curtains where you're concerned? And the silly git wasn't talking about hair color, she made sure I knew that."

John laughed and Sherlock, who didn't think the hair on his arms could get, you know, more _erect,_ discovered he was wrong.

"'Is _it_ as long as _he _is?' She was cruder than that because she was drunk and a jerk if you want to know the truth, and so John didn't say anything, but do you know what John would have said about our cock Sherlock? Do you?"

_Yes, _thought Sherlock_. Because he's said it in the dark, just before he's put his mouth there, slick and hot and—_

"That it _fits._ That John's body was made for us."

Sherlock ran the fingertips of his free hand over the hand John had at his neck, opened his mouth wider, as if it would help him hear better.

"Do you know that when he sees we're hard, even now, years after that first time, John's heart beats faster?"

_Yes,_ thought Sherlock._ I see it all the time, in the curl of his hands, in the tip of his tongue pressing at his teeth._

John shifted on the bed, one hand briefly sliding down Sherlock's thigh, there and quickly gone.

"But he wouldn't touch our cock so soon, would he?"

Sherlock sighed, then acknowledged this by drawing his dressing gown closed.

"What would John do to us right now, Sherlock?"

For four seconds the consulting genius did nothing. During those long moments he checked in with his grey matter, found that gridlock was still in place, that all he could tease from the logjam was the obvious: _wildly turned on; so hard I think my blood pressure might be affected—must check that some time; how does he _do_ this, how in god's name does he _know?

Sherlock pushed John away.

The good doctor—no, _Sherlock—_laughed. "Yessss."

The bedroom was silent for a short time that felt long. Then the bed shifted and moments later John's voice came from somewhere near the window. "He'd tease us, you're right. No touching. Maybe no talking, but not today. Today John would talk."

Sherlock wanted to touch himself but he didn't. That was another thing he knew John wouldn't—

"You can touch yourself, if you like. John would want to see that. Today he would, oh yes."

Two years. Almost. It's the blink of an eye and yet it's forever and how after all that time can this man, this small, sometimes quiet man still surprise Sherlock this much?

Sherlock raised his arms, grabbed hold of the headboard's rails. Well Sherlock can surprise, too.

Another deep laugh and a whisper. "You beautiful brat."

Sherlock grinned—both of them.

"I guess I'll have to touch for two, won't I? Just like I'm talking for two."

Silence again while the seed of that thought settled, then quickly bloomed. _John was going to—_

"Whose cock am I pushing at right now, Sherlock? Yours or mine? What a wonderful perplexity this great game is. Am I Sherlock? Am I John?"

Seconds, just a few, of sharp-edged silence and then John groaned, but it wasn't his own voice that made the sound.

So strange to be aware of the tick of his own heart, but John did that to him again and again and after all this time Sherlock was still amazed. _You beat my heart for me John, you make it drum._

Over that fast beat…silence.

Sherlock strained to hear but this was one part of him that was exactly like everyone else—and this was one of so many ways that John was like no one else. He could become invisible in even the brightest room—by simply going still and silent.

Sherlock held his breath, waited. When his tongue snaked from his mouth like an antenna seeking signal, he was rewarded with a faint sound. "John…" sighed John.

Sherlock hummed high in response, an instinctual reaction to his own voice crooning for his lover. Then for just a flash—a strange bold flash—Sherlock was jealous of the man at the window, the one that sounded like him, the one that wanted John. He growled deep, his sore throat aching, but with that primal sound he said to the other Sherlock, the one_ that didn't even exist,_ "Mine."

The answer was another faint moan, so much desire in it that it ticked Sherlock's fever up a full degree.

Tugging two-fisted at the headboard, arching neck and back, Sherlock growled again, harsh and loud, a simple, animalistic call-and-response. _I hear you. And—he—is—mine._

Barely two metres away John watched, wanted to soothe and shush his sweetheart but he did neither. Instead he stood there, mesmerized by the veins cording at Sherlock's neck, at the rattle and hum of that long body, and not for the first time he ached to see how much he was wanted.

And oh, right now that ache translated so sweetly into _hard as a god damn rock._

_"John,"_ he crooned again, then with a deep, shuddering breath he went quiet so that the room could fill loud with the sound of a zipper coming undone.

Knuckles showing white in pale skin, Sherlock stilled the better to hear, then when John moaned he echoed him, the sound high and desperate. _I hear you. And I'm here. I'm right here._

John grunted, his voice briefly his own. He wanted to call the game on account of forfeit, wanted to crawl on the bed and onto the man in it but he didn't. Instead he let the heavy sound of jeans falling fill the silence and then the good doctor followed them down, going to his knees, spit-slicked hand sliding over his erection.

Then Sherlock did it again, that strange high hum, that possessive, needy noise that both bullied and begged. _Mine. Me. Mine. Meeee._

And then it was just too much for him. He let go of the headboard suddenly, almost surprised he could. Breathing fast he sat up in the bed, turned his long, pale face toward his lover. But he didn't open his eyes.

_John._

Sherlock didn't say it, didn't even try, just let his mouth make the shape.

_John._

Sherlock stood, turned toward the silence as if it were a hot sun. After a moment he shrugged, the dark dressing gown sliding down his shoulders, catching briefly, almost comically, at his bum before slithering to the floor.

He didn't need eyes to know John was looking. Frankly he could _hear_ it in the oh-so-faint sound of John's hand moving faster.

And so the pretty man posed there in the pretty night light, pale flesh limned blue-white, and then Sherlock took a shaky little breath, and slowly—so every damn moment of it could be seen—so slowly, he went to his knees.

And then kept going.

Until he was on all fours and looking into eyes he couldn't see but yes, yes, definitely _yes_ he could _feel_ the gaze on him, don't you doubt that. Because desire has weight, need has _heft_ and yet even despite that Sherlock would know—he knows that he would—when John can see him, when John can hear him, when John wants him.

Now. And now. And right _now._

Sherlock smiled. Then Sherlock crawled.

It was two metres. Barely. Between window and bed. But it can take an awfully long time to span such as small distance. If that's what you want.

John's hand, his busy-busy hand, stilled, because he needed to go quiet and motionless and maybe breathless so that every part of him could devote itself to _seeing_ and so he stopped damn well jerking himself off and he held his breath and he maybe didn't blink.

And what he saw were shadows picking out muscles in arms and legs. The dance of dark and light making small pretty wings of shoulder blades. And moonlight dressing random curls in faint highlight.

_Botticelli. Rembrandt. Michelangelo._ John's not sure if any of them painted bodies like this. Surely someone must have, but he doesn't know their name, has never seen a painting that's captured this kind of perfection_._

John reached out as Sherlock neared, but just as he was close enough to touch, exactly as John lifted his hand to run fingers through those ridiculous curls Sherlock bowed his head.

John and Sherlock? They submit to one another all the time. In bed. Out of bed. With words. Without them. But it's always a submission of equals, how could it be any other way? As forceful as their wildly divergent personalities are they couldn't have lasted twenty minutes as anything less than peers, much less two years. So there's never been one day—not a single minute—between them where one thought himself better than the other. Smarter? Oh yes. Faster. Sure. Stronger. Yep. Taller. Shorter. Politer. Yes, yes, and yes.

But never _more than._ Never _better than._

So John looked down at this bold and powerful creature lowering himself and he let the sight of it make him grunt. Yeah, an inelegant, visceral, from-the-gut grunt of—what? Desire? Pleasure? Confusion? He wasn't sure then and he wasn't certain later. The subject on which he was clear, however, was that seeing Sherlock lower himself until his forehead touched the carpet left John painfully hard and absolutely motionless.

_What will he do next?_

Five little words both men have thought times past counting in the last two years. Sometimes the answer is really rather predictable:

* He'll moan when I do this…he loves this.

* He's going to break that and make another hole in the table if he's not caref—oh fuck.

* Oh dear, he's going to get stroppy about that in the morning.

And sometimes the answers are anything but.

* He saw those tiny marks on her wrist and knew what they meant before I did. Amazing.

* The bin is still smoking and he kissed me. Did he just kiss me? Why did he kiss me?

* He said he loved me. In front of half the Yard he said he loved me.

What Sherlock did next was somewhat predictable, followed closely by something John never saw coming. Even as he was coming.

What Sherlock did was rise in slow degrees, leaning forward just enough so he could press his head to the side of John's thigh, rubbing cheek, chin, curls, against John's bare leg until John petted him.

Purring his pleasure with soft sighs, Sherlock stretched himself long, pushed harder into John's hand, causing his lover to tip a little even though on his knees.

In a voice not his own the good doctor laughed, low and deep. Sherlock responded by swinging his head against John's hip, once, twice, a pale beast demanding more.

So John gave him more, stroking that head again, dancing fingertips lightly over cheek and ear, delicate butterfly touches, feathery and soft and exactly the way Sherlock caresses John late some nights when they're too tired for anything more than gentleness and quiet and ease.

The consulting detective detected the provenance of those touches, knew that even here John was…not John. He nuzzled his sweetheart's hand with mouth and nose, letting his lover feel his smile and the brief, pearly nip of teeth.

Again John laughed low when that tousled head bumped at his side, this time heavy and hard, a great cat playing rough.

"What do you want?" the one man asked the other.

And Sherlock replied with a grunt and nudged with the bridge of his nose, shoving John's hand toward his erection, then following that hand and opening his mouth, patiently waiting for it to be filled.

John cupped Sherlock's chin, drew his lover close, until lips just barely touched him, then instead of pushing his cock into that perfect mouth John made them both wait.

Sherlock was compliant, remaining motionless despite an intense desire to swipe a fevered tongue across hard flesh. Instead he stayed still and breathed deep, soothed, content that John smelled like John, even if right now he did not move or breathe or _sound_ like him.

"John…"

Sherlock grunt-growled, tried suddenly to take John in to the base but that gentle hand cupping his chin held fast…then the rest of him moved slow.

John's thrusts were small, just enough to push the head into Sherlock's mouth, only enough to daub his lover's lips with pre-come, and much more than enough to start Sherlock keening.

Oooo that sound…it came from down deep, from a place in the body where the brain—no matter how big—has no power. And that place made Sherlock giddy, so he shook his head again, pulling from John's grip, and he butted John's belly with his forehead, laughing a ridiculous, hoarse-throated laugh that demanded and begged and shouted for him, "More, come for me, oh—"

"—god," said the only Sherlock in the room who could speak, fist gripping tighter, moving faster. Head turned now, nipping at John's thigh, Sherlock laughed hoarsely again, grunted, moaned, the sounds raw and rough and very ready.

His lover's needy playfulness, his husky moans, they would have been enough, but Sherlock gave John more, just a little more, pressing his forehead to floor again, placing the bold extravagance of his arse on beautiful display.

John didn't even grunt as he started coming but Sherlock knew, he knew, and he lifted that shaggy head and groaned for both of them as John's ejaculate spattered warm on his closed-tight eyes, his cheeks and chin and mouth. He moaned and nodded _yes, god yes,_ tossing his head so that it was everywhere, all over him, warm and gorgeous and John, so very much John.

With the last spurt Sherlock swarmed in, pushed his lover's hand away, and then clamped his mouth over that still-hard cock before going suddenly gentle and tender, sucking softly at every last bit of everything.

And right about then John's knees tendered their resignation and the good doctor listed left and fell boneless to the carpet, jeans tangled at his knees, heart still hammering hard, and Sherlock was there, right over him, hovering on hands and knees and looking like a blind cat who really had no fucking clue about how to drink his milk.

"Oh…" the good doctor started to say, reaching for his lover, but Sherlock pressed a hand to John's mouth.

_No, not yet._

John grinned under those long fingers, kissed them, then he wiped tenderly at Sherlock's face, at the slick, cooling come that just a teensy bit kind of grossed him out, but then also rather suddenly gave him a pretty, _pretty_ idea.

Tugging Sherlock's hand from his lips, John pressed it to Sherlock's face, swiping it through the ejaculate. Then he shoved that long-fingered hand low between his legs. But it wasn't until Sherlock's come-slick fingers pressed gently at the tight hole of John's arse that the good doctor whispered, dark and deep, "Yeth."

Sherlock grunted, almost opened his eyes. His breathing went shallow and fast.

_No. Absolutely not._ _No, no, no._

_He would not let his own lisp be sexy._

"Yethhh."

Oh dear god.

_Well this took a long time to tell, didn't it? And yet we're only halfway there. One more chapter, maybe two. _

_In the meantime you need to know two things: I _got_ laryngitis while writing this and what I want to know is if I got _that _part, can I get the rest of this too? Dear god CAN I? The other thing you need to know is that I stole the line about the falling dressing gown catching on Sherlock's bum from Mirith Griffin fair and square and with her permission. Now please read "Control, Alt, Delete," the glorious story from which it was pilfered and prepare to be stunned by the grace, amazed by her gift, for she really, really is that god damn good._


	3. Chapter 3

It was eight in the evening when the miracle happened on Baker Street.

"Make love to me." The good doctor moaned soft, but even at a whisper it was with the dark, low voice of his lover.

On hands and knees over the smaller man, face slick with John's come, long fingers wet with the same and sliding into his lover's arse, Sherlock stilled, listening.

"Need you," groaned the doctor, the sound from deep in his chest. "Want you. Now, now, oh god now. Pleath?"

The words were flawless—their cadence, the rumble, the raw need, even the god damn lisp was pitch perfect. Legs wrapping around Sherlock's hips, John's breathing, his moaning, his _movements_ were more like Sherlock than Sherlock.

And that's when the miracle occurred.

After two years of doing every conceivable thing with the man begging beneath him, after two years of finding no reason whatsoever to say no to anything John asked, not once, not ever, Sherlock at last unearthed his very first sexual limit.

Kindly attend.

John's cane. The riding crop. Certain portions of a certain brolly. Fingers, tongue, toes, a butter-slicked cock—for god's sake John and Sherlock have had up their pretty posteriors a quite eye-widening array of items and of this trend neither spot an end in sight. So to speak.

Sherlock has had sex with John in public four times. They were caught that fourth time and though John swears he will not drop trou' in public ever again, Sherlock continues to watch for likely spots—even as they dramatically splash down dark alleys on the heels of the criminal element.

During sex with John, Sherlock has got hard and got off when covered with honey, with cream, with chocolate, jam, frosting, pasta sauce (don't ask), and live bees. He is still anxious to try meringue, treacle, custard, and sticky toffee.

And finally, Sherlock has had sex while wearing heels; mehndi; a half dozen piercings; thigh-high boots; a bridle, bit, and reins. If (when), in the future, John asks him to wear (not all at the same time (yet)) a really sweet little frilly skirt; a corset; fishnet stockings; elbow-length gloves; or blue body paint Sherlock's only question will be: Now?

Which is the long way of saying that until right this moment, neither John nor Sherlock had successfully located even one of the detective's sexual boundaries.

That Sherlock still had a few slick smears of John's ejaculate on his face and chest, the fact that Sherlock had two fingers inside John's arse up to the second knuckle, the fact that both of them had been engaging in a truly epic mind fuck for the last half hour was in no way a problem for Sherlock.

No, the issue appeared to be—and this surprised the detective more than anyone—that Sherlock had absolutely no desire to, shall we say, fuck himself.

So as John bucked beneath him and _breathed_ and _talked_ and _moved_ like Sherlock, as John tried to tug Sherlock close so that the man would just get his pretty cock into John's pretty arse, Sherlock found that that pretty cock? It was losing interest in the proceedings really rather quickly. And laryngitis leaving him with no way to convey to his sweetie precisely what was going down. Except, you know, his erection.

There, however, Sherlock was wrong.

Because right about then John stopped moving. He blinked his eyes open, and though Sherlock's remained closed, the good doctor read that flushed face. Of course he did. This was John we're talking about, John Watson, the smartest man in the room when it came to consulting detectives.

And that John, that bright, brilliant, devious creature? He grinned.

Because it didn't take more than a glance for the good doctor to belatedly realize two amazing things. Not only had they at last and quite unexpectedly found a line that Sherlock would not cross, but it turned out that John? Unassuming John? Yeah, well _that _guy was a whole fucking hell of a lot more vain than he realized.

Because all of this? It really was never about Sherlock fucking Sherlock. God no. Apparently it was about John romancing…_himself._

_Let me use your beautiful, dark voice my love…to tell you what we think of _me.

John's grin grew and do you know what? It wasn't even a little bit embarrassed.

_Well then. I guess it's time for Narcissus to make love to himself._

Hovering above the smaller man, Sherlock grunted. Like a warm wind across bare skin he felt the change in John. Cloud eyes closed tight, Sherlock leaned down and did what he always did when searching for clues: he smelled (back of John's ear, his neck, his hair), he tasted (a swipe of tongue at all those places), and he listened (so help him Sherlock heard the heat-lightning of neurons firing inside that sandy head).

Satisfied with what he'd uncovered, Sherlock grunted again, pulled away. _Yes,_ he said, sitting back on his heels. _Anything_ he whispered without voice, dropping arms to his sides, open, willing, waiting.

"What," said John, "would we do without John?"

Sherlock twitched. His lover was already behind him and the great detective had not heard the small man move.

Another sound, this one of appreciation. __You drift quiet as a cloud, love. Where did you find such grace?_ _

John trailed fingers soft along Sherlock's back. "Doesn't matter…" John pressed lips to Sherlock's ear "…we have him now, don't we?"

The lisp was gone, but the voice was the same…Sherlock's voice from John's mouth, Sherlock's breath at Sherlock's ear.

"…our sweet, sweet John."

Sherlock's need for his lover…from his lover's mouth.

And oh Sherlock's arousal at the sound of his sweetheart saying his own name…it would have left him speechless if he'd been capable of speech.

"Should I say it again? John's name? We say it often, don't we? It's a swear word—'John! I asked you for the beetles three _hours_ ago!' It's a promise—'John will be by in an hour to pick up the beetles.'"

Sherlock's narrow face went briefly wide with a crooked grin.

"But it's neither of those things, is it Sherlock? I used to wonder if John could hear it…how…we…say…his…name."

As John spoke he sank slowly to his knees behind his lover, whispered…

"That name, that name. Just saying it, it's—it's the way we pray. It's the way we breathe. It's the way we tell him 'you are my lifeline, you are my love.' And because we're us, because we are as rare as he is common yes, _yes_ he hears the way we say it, he'd have to be deaf not to hear it, he'd have to be a fool."

John laughed. "Well, maybe he's one, but the good doctor isn't the other." John rubbed his cheek along Sherlock's back, prickling the skin with a day's worth of beard.

"You know John watches us sometimes, don't you?" The doctor trailed a faint touch along Sherlock's hip.

Sherlock felt his heart trip faster. _I __know. __God __yes._

"Of course you know. The good doctor makes no secret of it. Not usually. Even now, after two years, he watches us move, he watches us…masturbate."

John laughed again and it was exactly Sherlock, sonorous and breathy, needy and rare.

"Do you think he knows what goes through our mind…" John's hand slid smooth around his lover's waist, then low over his belly. "…when we get ourselves off?"

Arms heavy at his side Sherlock leaned back, into John, let the smaller man take his weight. Tipping his head back he rubbed his cheek slowly against John's. _Yes__…__yes__…__yes._

Palm flat against that pale belly John drew in a ragged breath, taking in the crazy-perfect smell of his sweetheart in rut. It made him ache, it made him hungry, dear god it made him hard.

"Should we tell him what we're thinking when we do this?"

John's hand drifted, settled soft over Sherlock's cock.

But the good doctor didn't start to stroke. Sherlock rarely does. Not right away, no. Sherlock, the beautiful tease, he _teases._ Even himself.

"Sometimes we weave our way through a tangle of clues when we do this, don't we? Even great minds need time to mellow, to calm, to focus."

John wrapped his other arm round Sherlock's waist, pulled the big man closer, took more of his weight. The hand between Sherlock's legs was barely there, hardly touching.

"Those thoughts eventually fade and we find our way…" The good doctor reached low, gently cupped testicles, pulled a little, pushed. "…here."

Sherlock settled heavy between John's thighs, abandoning all pretense that he was not a puppet willingly on this man's strings.

"We don't think of John yet though, do we? Even as we touch harder, even as we _get_ harder."

John groaned low in Sherlock's ear and the sound was still right, _just __so._ "We think some more though, of course we do. Thinking's as vital as breathing, it's as important as the beat of our heart."

John's hand fisted around Sherlock's erection though it did not stroke. "For a long time we didn't think about _this_ though, did we, our cock? No. And now? Now we can hardly _stop_ thinking about it some days. Why is that?"

One soft stroke…

"Because of John. Dear god John_. _Because he's touched us, made our body sing, and like a tune you just can't get out of your head we can't get him out of ours. Wouldn't even try."

Another careful stroke…

"Even when he's not there he's there. The smell of him in our clothes and on our skin. It's tea and patience that smell, it's musk, desire, it's our own spit on him from all the times we've kissed him, licked him, bit and nipped and sucked."

And another…

"We're hard often now, at odd times, in strange places. We'll be doing something else—waiting for a witness, combing through a crime scene, staring from the window of a cab—and we'll lick our lips and there it'll be, the taste of him on our tongue, the taste of his body, his mouth, his come."

A fourth stroke, freighted with Sherlock's moan…

"Can't remember…did we ever tell John about that time, early on—right after _I_ became _we__—_did we ever tell him about wanking in a public toilet because we'd been hard for hours—_hours__—_and we needed to fuck him or be fucked by him so badly there weren't even words for it, not yet? No, we never told him about that but he saw it, he saw _after, _saw the flush on our face and the swell of our lips where we'd bitten them. John's not us, no, he's not half so bright as we are, but _he __sees._ He will never not see us."

A groan just before the fifth stroke…

"So when we're in bed alone and we're doing this, just this, slow and lazy, for a long time we'll think about all of these things, wild random thoughts of yesterday, last year, of being hard, of going soft. But finally we're ready to get down to business. Finally we're ready to fucking _come._ And so we think about him. We focus our magnificent mind and we think about John."

A slow stroke, long-fingered hands now clenching tight around John's thighs…

"Sometimes we close our eyes and think about those short, strong fingers pushing into our mouth. That can be enough some days, because some days we're just god damn _oral __as __hell,_ you know? Some days we want our mouth so full we can't talk, can barely breathe, some days we want any part of him, any part at all, filling us up, stilling our tongue and making our jaw ache. Thinking about that can be enough, more than enough to make us…come…and come."

A single groan from two mouths, another stroke…

"Other times we think about fucking him. We don't talk like John does, no, don't swear like he does, but when we _think,_ well sometimes it's so much better to think about _fucking_ instead of making love. It goes right here—"

John squeezed Sherlock's prick and the silent man made a deep sound, guttural and raw.

"—that word. Didn't see that coming, didn't think we were as primitive as all that. We are, oh god we are. So sometimes we'll stroke ourselves to the idea of fucking, to the thought of pushing our cock into John's arse. We _watch _it, in mind's eye we _look,_ see every inch as it slides into him and god, just the _idea_ of it makes our dick positively _drip,_ oh Jesus…"

Who moaned just then? John couldn't say. All he knew was that he was hard again, his cock dripping oh yes, trapped beneath the man in his lap and god it ached, was _exactly_ what they mean when they say _hurts __so __good._

The good doctor pressed his forehead between the sharp blades at Sherlock's back, huffed fast breath out across sweating skin. The thrum of his lover's heart could be felt even here, a staccato beat, sturdy and swift. John kissed salty, slick skin, and by extension that strong and splendid heart.

"It doesn't matter what we think about really, does it Sherlock? Because here's the thing we know, here's the thing even John knows—when we're alone in our pleasure, when we've got our legs spread and our hand doing the hard work—our mind may dart from one thing to another, from a case, to a clue, to the taste of our come on John's mouth—but no matter how long we take and where we go on our way there it's only him we see. There's no one else crowding that crowded brain, there never really has been, there never really will be."

A breathy laugh, a desperate laugh, a needy, horny, _happy_ laugh. "But you know what? Even if there was, even if one day we wank to visions of a brass band, or a boy band, or to that guy in that movie that we keep pretending we don't like every single time John watches it…well it won't matter. _This __is __what __matters__…__"_

It was done so elegantly over those last four words that it took a moment for Sherlock to realize John was talking with his own voice now.

"This is all that ever matters. John's arms have you, John's heart holds you, John loves you, always, when you're in full voice, when you're silent, when you're far away, when you're near. Oh god he loves…"

Faster strokes…

"…he loves…"

Harder strokes…

"…he so very, very much…"

Faster still…

"…loves you."

Silent but not still, Sherlock shook, a storm contained between strong arms. Or, more plainly put, Sherlock shuddered as a god damn glorious orgasm washed through him, leaving that long body limp and boneless, sticky and shaky and spent.

Groaning hoarse he tried to speak, wanted to laugh and praise and maybe even tease a little but he couldn't, could barely lift the back of his head from John's shoulder, could hardly make his limbs work.

In the end they stayed just that way for awhile, Sherlock held close between John's arms and legs, and after a bit Sherlock mustered the energy to do the one thing he could manage. He turned his head until lips pressed at the side of John's head and he kissed sandy hair, not once, not twice, but over and over and over, until John lost count.

_ _And thus concludes Narcissus. I know the lisp didn't linger, but the story told me that it wasn't quite right and _you_ go and try arguing with the voices in my head and see how far _you_ damn well get. Anyway, thank you meredithriddle for a suggestion I used but swapped. It's _John _jerking off _Sherlock, _my dear, but your idea was wonderfully inspired._ _

_**MORE!** I'm no longer publishing on FFnet as they don't want NC-17 content, so please visit atlinmerrick dot livejournal dot com if you'd like to read more, or Tumblr or Twitter, and eventually everything will be on AO3—please follow!_


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